Published 4:00 am, Saturday, April 18, 1998

1998-04-18 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Some people are born to idiocy, some people achieve idiocy and some people have idiocy thrust upon them.

The column Thursday poking fun at the Menlo Park leaf-blower debate was "particularly idiotic," according to one e-mailer.

Nice to see that I achieved more than my usual level of idiocy.

Anyway, a fair number of comments came rolling in concerning the leaf-blower controversy.

First, a sampling.

"A lot of people in support of (the use of leaf blowers) obviously work away from home and do not have to suffer the hours on end of whine and dust put out by these contraptions," wrote Steve Trigwell of Sunnyvale via e-mail.

"We've asked our gardeners for years to muffle those leaf blowers and they haven't," said Charlotte Murphy via voicemail.

"We just want the leaf blowers to get quieter. Maybe now they'll get the message."

Maury St. Clair, a 75-year-old Menlo Park resident, mows his lawn with a push-mower, prunes his shrubs by hand and even maintains his swimming pool himself.

"For the past 30 years, I have been able to take good care of my landscaping . . . because of owning and using a leaf blower. There is no way I could have done this without the blower," he said via e-mail.

St. Clair concluded with a plea for reasonableness, a call that cut across both sides of the controversy.

In fact, the comments I received ran just about 50-50 among those who supported the ban and those who opposed it.

And that's the point, really.

It certainly appeared that while the City Council was considering the ban, the Menlo Park residents who commented were nearly evenly divided on the issue.

There certainly seemed to be a strong consensus that some kind of compromise could be worked out or at least should be attempted.

In the face of that, the City Council's three-member majority brushed aside any offers to compromise and passed the ban anyway.

And they did so in a manner that suggested their minds were made up from the very beginning and that nothing was going to change them.

Ah, well. They'll get a referendum for their troubles, a polarizing election will be held and a year after the ban is upheld by the voters -- just like it was in Los Altos -- gardeners will still be cleaning sidewalks with gas-powered leaf blowers.

FORSOOTH AND PRITHEE: The entire wedding party had gathered -- many decked out in Renaissance costumes -- at the Pulgas Water Temple for the nuptials two weeks ago of John Bauer and Colleen Williams.

Only one thing was missing.

The bride.

She got lost making the drive from her home in Chico and couldn't find the temple, situated alongside Canada Road between Highway 92 and Woodside Road.

And it was getting late.

Another wedding was scheduled at the temple for noon and the Bauer-Williams affair had to clear out by 11:30. It was well past 11.

And it was raining. It had started sprinkling at 10 a.m., and by 11 it was a full-blown torrent.

Williams finally found the temple at 11:25, but when she rushed toward the wedding, the water department security guard stopped her, for reasons that remain unknown.

Finally, the whole matter was moved down the road, to a redwood grove in Woodside, where the reception was to be held.

There, protected from the rain by the ancient trees, the couple tied the knot.

The punch line to it all is Williams' frazzled response when the water department guard told her she couldn't come in.

"Is it because of my past?" she asked.

Maybe. As Minister Robert Chauvin pronounced the couple man and wife, there was a flash of lightning followed closely by the rumble of thunder.

BANK OF ALL AMERICA: The ever- eager comedy king Bob Lacey says that, yes, he expects Bank of America to raise its banking rates in the aftermath of its megamerger with NationsBank of North Carolina.

"But the good news is that they're going to accept Confederate currency," Lacey said.